


Winged Cupid Painted Blind

by plzdean



Category: In The Flesh
Genre: Artist Kieren, Ficlet, M/M, Moving In Together, there really aren't many tags for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 05:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2536082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plzdean/pseuds/plzdean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Kieren and Simon move into their first flat together, they begin to notice how their lives - separate at first - were becoming interwoven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winged Cupid Painted Blind

**Author's Note:**

> (posting from my ipod bc my laptop is broken so sorry for any typos)

When Kieren and Simon first decided to move in together, there was an unspoken mutual agreement that they'd keep their lives at a comfortable yet unintrusive distance. This way, they decided, they could be to together when they wanted to be, and apart when they needed the space. 

To begin with, Simon let Kieren use the spare room as an art studio; paintings hung in frames, sketches tacked to the walls. Each surface - every shelf or coffee table - was covered in half empty tubes of paint, murky water pots of dirty brushes, and splatters of paint on the new oak floorboards Simon had had fitted especially. Simon took over a corner of the living room where his old book case stood - hundreds upon hundreds of dusty poetry books bound in leather, some centuries old - family heirlooms as it were - others presents from Kieren for his birthday (much to Simon's protests that he didn't want a birthday present) and Kieren always gave his favourites as a teenager growing up. 

They kept their bedroom neutral; each had a half of the walk-in wardrobe, and Steve had crafted the pair a set of drawers each. Kieren and Simon had painted the walls together; Simon insisted that it was only fair that he helped, and, besides, there were some parts up high that Kieren couldn't quite reach. Sure, Kieren ended up with more paint on the old oversized shirt he was wearing than on the wall (thanks to Jem) but the job got done in the end. 

To start with there were differences in how they kept their space. Kieren kept his shirts and jeans in straight colour co-ordinated piles, which would always be tidied away the second they were ironed. His shoes were kept in neat row against the wall, and his coat hung creaseless on the hanger by the door. Whenever he'd finish with a plate or bowl, he'd either wash it up instantly or place it in the dishwasher to be washed. Simon was the opposite, however. On his side of the room, sweaters lay strewn across the floor and Kieren would often find a discarded sock had made it's way into his side of the bed. Whenever Kieren came home from a day walking the coast alone with sketchbook in hand, he'd be able to track Simon's movements around the house by the clusters of used crockery deposited on every surface. His poetry books were frequently left in tall stacks on his leather arm chair (the arm chair Kieren was adamant he didn't want in their house, but Simon argued otherwise) which would frequently topple over and Kieren would have to force him to finally clear them away. 

But over time, their spaces seemed to merge into one.

Kieren would enter his art studio after a long day of sketching in the park to find Simon's favourite novel lying on the window sill, or a mug of half finished black coffee balanced on the easel of his newest masterpiece. When Simon was out grabbing a carton of milk from the corner shop down the street, Kieren would find the sketches he'd drawn for Simon taped inside a moleskin diary he'd been sure to keep way out of Kieren's knowledge. He'd even sometimes find his own old sketchbooks - ones he had sworn he'd lost during the move - tucked under Simon's pillow or sitting on top of a shoe box under Simon's side of the bed.

But Simon wasn't the only one guilty of crossing the other's space. 

Kieren would often steal Simon's woollen jumpers, and when Simon was gone for the night, he'd fall asleep wearing them and dream of Simon sleeping close. Sometimes he'd clear a space on the floor in front of Simon's bookcase and read Simon's favourite poetry - Robert Browning, WH Auden, William Butler Yeats, the lot - until he fell asleep in a heap on Simon's tattered rug. (It didn't matter, though, because when he woke up in the morning he'd usually be tucked up in bed with Simon's body close behind him, fingers linked, legs interwoven). 

After a couple of months, Kieren would find he would now discard dirty shirts to the floor instead of putting them washing basket like he always would. Simon would now find himself cleaning away cups and plates simply because he knew Kieren disliked it. It was little things, little quirks, that they seemed to adopt first. Little pieces of each other now owned.

Amy was the one who noticed the change in their living spaces first. She noticed the little obscurities, the misplaced objects, the pieces of each other that they'd adopted into theirselves. She watched the way their lives became interwoven; the way Kieren would answer the door dressed fully in Simon's clothes, or how she'd notice Simon sitting on his own in a corner of the room, desperately trying to imitate Kieren's drawing style.

Then after months of subtle changes, they both eventually gave into them more. As before Kieren would notice Simon watching him paint through the crack in his art studio door, now Simon would come inside, sit against the wall, and watch him for hours on end. Simon liked to be in Kieren's company. Mostly because no one's presence had ever been able to silence him like this before, but also because Kieren Walker made him feel warm, and comfortable, and like he was finally worth something again. It was a feeling he'd never grow tired of, and he swore to himself that he was the luckiest man alive.

And Kieren, too, was guilty of invading the other's space, but he was more discrete. He'd sit on the sofa pretending to sketch, but his pencil never even graced the paper. Instead he'd be sat there as still as he could, listening to Simon muttering Shakespeare under his breath from his tattered leather armchair - the armchair which Kieren had grown to actually quite like. He knew that what he was listening to were words that Simon lived by, that he learned from. These were the words that taught him how to love, to hate, to envy, to protect. Hearing these words spoken so softly and unassuming gave them more depth, because Kieren knew that Simon had always known that he'd been listening to him read, paying attention to him, noting down his favourites lines in the back of his sketchbook, since the day they first moved in together. And for Kieren, that was one less of Simon's walls that he had to climb.

It was as if, no matter how hard they'd tried to maintain separate lives, they were naturally drawn to each other. And that's why they are so good together - they just fit. Two mismatched puzzle pieces who found they fit perfectly, forever indebted to the stars that lead them there.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos if you like it, comment any feedback!! ily all <3


End file.
